


From Orange to Blue

by patster223



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, M/M, Panic Attacks, Portal crossover, Verbal Abuse, trauma that goes along with being trapped in an underground lab facility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1689080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/pseuds/patster223
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Hermann begins to investigate Aperture Science, all he wants to do is find answers, find a cure for this apocalypse, find <em>Newton</em>. He doesn’t expect to become trapped in an underground lab facility in the process. But if the truth comes at a price, then Hermann is willing to pay it if it means getting a certain, infuriating biologist safe and back above ground. </p><p>Crossover with the video game Portal, though knowledge of that universe is not necessary to read. My fic for the 2014 Pacific Rim mini bang, with beautiful art work by <a href="http://eltsia.tumblr.com/post/87303678217/my-illustrations-for-the-pacific-rim-minibang">eltsia</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Orange to Blue

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [eltsia](http://eltsia.tumblr.com/post/87303678217/my-illustrations-for-the-pacific-rim-minibang) for creating such amazing art for this and working so hard on these gorgeous pieces. So glad we ended up working together! Thanks also to [priellan](http://priellan.tumblr.com/) for the beta!

 

 

Hermann has been trapped in the depths of Aperture Laboratories for perhaps a month -– “perhaps” because he lost his watch long ago and now has no way to count time as it passes –- before he finds the personality core.

He doesn’t think very much of it at first. Hermann has come across other personality cores during his time here: white spheres larger than his head with great, glowing lenses that stare at him like eyes. They are unnerving to say the least, but Hermann cannot help but marvel at whatever feat of engineering brought these machines to life; these machines that don’t act like machines, that talk like _people._

Of course, Hermann is not very fond of most people, so he should have been less surprised when talking with the cores proved unsatisfactory. One had prattled on and on about _space_ –- Hermann can sympathize with that particular passion, but discussions about the universe should involve more than just the _word_ "space" –- and others seemed profoundly disinterested in Hermann’s pleas of _please help me get out of here_.

So when he sees this particular personality core, he only sighs and hopes that this isn’t one of the ones that likes to shout. Of course, as soon as the core senses Hermann’s presence, it yells, “Holy shit! How did she find a new person to test? I thought everyone else was gone!”

Hermann winces, but before he can say a word, the core squints its bright, orange eye at him. “Wait,” it says. “You’re not Aperture, you’re…”

The core actually _gasps_ and Hermann marvels that melodrama of all things is programmed into its circuits. It, like many of the other personality cores, is attached to a long crane that runs along a track on the walls. Not moments after its apparent shock, the personality core’s crane speeds along the walls, placing the core not two feet in front of Hermann.

Hermann flinches, holding up his portal gun in self defense. “What do you want?” he asks tightly.

The core’s orange eye blinks several times before it screeches, “ _Hermann?_ Hermann Gottlieb?” The core makes a whirring sound that seems to indicate distress. It spins around several times before turning back to him –- Hermann gets the sudden mental image of someone pacing. Finally, the core says, “Hermann Gottlieb holding a portal gun in Aperture Laboratories. Who would’ve thought, huh?”

“Not I,” Hermann admits.

“Eh, you were never that creative though,” the core says, moving about Hermann, examining him. Though it has no eyebrows to raise, Hermann can imagine the action nonetheless as the core takes in his orange jumpsuit. “I doubt you could’ve _ever_ thought this up,” the core continues. “Way too cool for you.”

Hermann narrows his eyes. Sadly, artificial intelligences mocking him has become a familiar reality as of late, but at least none of the others pretended such _familiarity_ with him. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

The core freezes in place, and it’s only then that Hermann realizes how constantly it’d been shifting and moving in the past few minutes. The sudden stillness is unnerving.

“You don’t recognize me?” the core asks, crestfallen.

Hermann slowly shakes his head. “I, ah. I don’t think so?”

The core looks down at itself. “I mean, we only met once, and it was like…” The core pauses. “Well, it was definitely awhile ago. Months ago? Maybe. But whatever, you know? It doesn’t matter; I know that _some_ of this charming personality left an impression on you, Herms.”

Hermann is getting a headache. The core’s voice is strident, it babbles carelessly, it calls him _Herms_ –- Hermann is beyond irritated, he can practically feel a vein throbbing in his forehead and-

Hermann’s eyes widen. “ _Newton_?”

The core –- _Newton_ \-- spins around, whirring in what seems to be a satisfied manner. “The one and only!”

Hermann thinks that he may faint. “Newton?” he whispers again.

Newton somehow manages to roll his eye. “Come on, I’ve told you to call me Newt!”

This is all rather much. Being trapped in an underground lab facility is one thing, but running into _Newton_ -– and not just Newton, but Newton as a _personality core_ \-- here? Hermann is having trouble breathing. “I’m not calling you by that horrendous nickname,” he manages.

“Hey, you okay, man? I mean, you’re still managing to be a buzz kill so you can’t be _that_ bad, but you’re not looking so hot,” Newton says. He spins once in place and the image of Newton’s twitching hands appears in Hermann’s mind.

“I could say the same for you,” Hermann says, forcing himself to meet Newton’s glowing eye.

Newton glares at him. “Hey, I know this isn’t the stunning bod you’re used to, but I think I make a pretty handsome personality core!”

Hermann glares right back. Whether or not Hermann ever thought Newton’s body was “stunning” is, well, it’s entirely beside the point. There are more pressing issues at hand. “And under exactly _what_ circumstances have we come to admire your current body, Newton?” Hermann says. “That is to say, _why_ is your insufferable voice coming out of that _thing_?”

Newton blinks. “First of all: _rude_. Second of all: we have way better questions to be asking right now. Like, what are you even _doing_ here, dude? You should definitely not be here.”

“I couldn’t agree more!”

“Then why are you here?”

“No, we are not doing this,” Hermann says firmly. “Answer my question first.”

“God, you’re so _annoying._ Answer my question and I’ll answer yours,” Newton says.

“No,” Hermann says, unable to ignore how much their back and forth makes him feel like an obstinate child. He presses on regardless. _“Absolutely_ not. Between our two present lines of inquiry, I’m afraid that the question of my presence here must defer to the fact that you are now a _robot!”_

Newton looks at him for a moment. Finally, he says, “That’s actually pretty humanist of you, Herms. I didn’t think you were that kind of guy.”

“Humanist?”

“Yeah, you know, prejudiced against non-humans.”

Hermann wants to scream. “That’s not what humanist _means_.”

Newton only rolls his eye again. “That’s not what it _originally_ means, sure. But we’ve never actually had to deal with prejudice against robots before, have we? There’s not exactly a word I can use. So you know what? I’m taking this one. Appropriation, bitch.”

There is a long list of things that Hermann needs at this moment: food, water, sleep, _escape_. He can honestly say that arguing with his former colleague –- colleague turned robot, apparently -– about language concerning the supposedly arising need for robotic equality is at the bottom of the list. No, in fact, it is not _on_ the list, because Hermann does not need this. He truly does not.

He needs to go home.

 

When Hermann first woke up in Aperture Laboratories, the orange jumpsuit was what initially drew his eye. It was an odd first thing to notice, but it was what drew his attention regardless -- the jumpsuit was singed and worn, and it left his forearms uncomfortably bare. It also fit him perfectly; Hermann tried not to think too much about this.

However, in ignoring this observation, Hermann was forced to examine other things. Such as the fact that the white-walled room he was in had neither windows nor doors. Or the pressing fact that Hermann did not know _who_ had carried him to this place and _why_. But perhaps most unsettling of all was the fact that while he’d been unconscious, while he’d been _unaware_ , someone had strapped foreign devices to his shins.

Sleek, mechanized springs ran like an arc from his shins to his heels; when he stood, the springs supported his weight, forcing him to walk on his toes. He wondered if these were permanent attachments, if instead of the cane his doctor had been threatening him with, Hermann would be stuck forever with these _monstrosities_ \-- he had to close his eyes for a moment, forcing himself not to be sick all over the white tile.

The most unnerving thing was that they didn’t hurt. For the first time in years, Hermann could walk without pain, could go without the twinge in his leg that came with every step. It was this that scared Hermann most, more than the white walls or the jumpsuit or any of it. “What have you done to me?” whispered Hermann, tracing his finger along the contraption.

As if in response to his words, a voice filtered in through the ceiling's speakers. After having worked on the Jaeger AIs, Hermann could recognize it as robotic, but only just: though it was cool and distant, the female voice lacked the stiffness of the ones he’d coded in the past.

“Hello,” the voice said.

“Hello,” Hermann tentatively replied. “Where am I?”

“You are in the Enrichment Center of Aperture Science, [subject name here] from [subject hometown here].”

Hermann closed his eyes. _Gott_ , _what have you gotten yourself into, Hermann?_ By reputation alone, he knew that anyone placed in Aperture -– a scientific beacon to the world, a place of constant creativity and innovation, but an absolute _madhouse,_ a place where people disappeared and then reappeared changed, a place that was “ _dangerous, Newton, you must get out while you still can”_ –- had little chance of escape.

“Where am I in Aperture?” Hermann asked, his throat dry.

“The Enrichment Center,” the voice said again, more slowly, as if she were indulging Hermann. “You, [subject name here], are about to be tested.”

“Dr. Gottlieb,” he replied tersely. “Dr. Hermann Gottlieb is my name. And I don’t want to be tested.”

The voice sighed, its tone shifting from cool and slightly artificial to annoyed as she spoke again. “Well, obviously you don’t _want_ to be tested. No one ever does – you’re all so selfish. But sadly, Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, I don’t really care about what you want. I just want to test you.”

 _Perhaps this is what happened to the others_ , Hermann thought. _Perhaps this is how every single Aperture employee fell off the face of the Earth._ But it was a distant thought. Truthfully, Hermann no longer had time for such ruminations –- all too soon he was thrown into a series of white-walled chambers that resembled cavernous tombs more than rooms, their ceilings as high as some buildings were tall, their insides as empty and _lonely_ as crypts.

But even if Hermann always felt lonely, he was never alone. The voice followed him as he traveled from room to room, as he solved the “tests” that turned out to be logic puzzles that took up entire chambers. The voice was there when he accidently discovered that the devices strapped to his ankles allowed him to jump from great heights without being injured, and it was also there immediately after he realized this, when he stood stunned for a whole minute before vomiting. The entire time, the voice urged him forward, disparaging him –- _you know,_ _we gave you those boots so that you could finally be tested on your mental prowess instead of your physical abilities. It’s rather sad that you’re doing so poorly in spite of them --_ until he finally reached the-

Well. The voice called it a portal gun. She’d explained – and by explained, Hermann meant that she’d ridiculed him until he’d figured out how to use it –- that it shot glowing openings called portals onto flat surfaces. Shoot one portal onto one wall and another on the opposite side of the room, and you could travel through one portal and out the other.

The voice called it a portal gun. Hermann called it an instrument that had been created merely to torment him, to defy _physics_ and _natural laws_ while happily giving no explanation for its existence -- one more thing to torture him while he was down here.

But he supposed that portal gun worked as well.

 

Hermann does not get the opportunity to debate the fundamentals of robotic inequality -– which, quite frankly, is something that would have talked even _before_ Newton became a personality core, because they have always loved (secretly, in Hermann’s case) science fiction and hypotheticals and, above all else, arguing –- with Newton.

He does not get this opportunity because before Hermann can even begin to think of a counterargument, Newton suddenly says “Turret!” and throws his weight into Hermann, knocking him onto the ground. Only seconds after Hermann hits the floor, bullets sail over his head. Hermann groans, not because of the near-miss with the turret – he’s stumbled upon so many of the small, gun-totting robots that surprise is impossible -– but because it’s _Newton_ who saved him and it is _Newton_ who is currently lying on top of him. Hermann groans because even if he _had_ ever imagined Newton on top of him, he had certainly never pictured this particular scenario.

“I hate you,” he snarls, turning to shoot one portal into the ceiling above the tripod-like turret and then another one beneath the turret itself. The turret, after making a sound of surprise, begins a perpetual freefall, falling into the floor out of the ceiling into the floor and so on. Hermann shoves Newton off of him and the man –- er, core -– goes to examine the turret. Hermann joins him, entranced by the turret’s impossible, infinite fall.

“This must be giving you such a physics boner right now,” Newton says finally.

Hermann sighs and shoots a portal into a different part of the ceiling so that the turret crashes to earth, its fall ended.

“I don’t blame you,” the turret whispers before the red light of its eye goes out.

Newton winces. “Nothing like guilt-inducing subroutines packaged as artificial intelligence to make you face the gravity of your own self-serving actions, huh, Hermann? Or at least make you feel like an asshole.”

“It’s just a robot,” Hermann says softly, unable to quite tear his gaze away from the turret’s blank, accusatory stare. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Newton’s skeptical glance.

“Yeah, I bet that’s what you said right after you programmed the first Jaeger too,” Newton says. He looks at the turret for a moment longer before turning to face Hermann. “Hey, I’d never thought about this, but since I’m a robot now, does that mean I stand a better chance of being with you?”

 _You always stood a chance,_ Hermann thinks. _If only you hadn’t been so impossible. If only you_ still _weren’t so impossible_. Aloud, he only groans again. “I can’t believe this.”

“It’s just a question,” Newt says. He somehow gives the impression of a shrug without actually having shoulders – Hermann thinks it’s in the way that Newton’s body rotates ever so slightly. Or perhaps Hermann just knows the other man so well by now that he can interpret his body language without a proper body actually being present for the affair.

Hermann hopes it is not the latter. Unsure of how to respond, he mutters, “We need to move onto the next chamber.” The _we_ comes to him as easily as breathing, but thankfully Newton doesn’t question it.

“Yeah,” Newton says. “We actually probably should. GLaDOS has a habit of flooding the chambers with neurotoxin to keep the test subjects moving.”

Hermann knows that fact all too well. “GLaDOS?” he says. “Is that the voice’s name?”

“The voice? You’re going to have to be more specific, Herms. This voice?” And then the _voice_ comes out of Newton’s speakers, and even though it’s obviously a poor recording, Hermann cannot help but flinch at the sound: “Prepare yourself to be tested.”

Newton’s own voice floods through his speakers again and he says, “You know, her.”

“Don’t…don’t do that,” Hermann says, clutching his portal gun tightly.

Newton pauses. “Bad?”

How long has Newton been down here that he’s forgotten that playing another person’s voice through your body counts as _unnerving_? But then again, Newton has never been one for social convention, or any sort of conventions at all. “Let’s just move on,” Hermann sighs, and Newton follows him into the next chamber.

           

When Hermann first met Newton Geiszler, he was expecting-

Well. He didn’t know what to expect, truthfully, even after years of correspondence. Hermann had heard endless stories about the eccentrics -– one of the kinder words used -- who worked at Aperture, and even though he liked –- _more than ‘like,’ come now, Gottlieb_ –- Newton, he deemed it best to be…cautious, during this first meeting.

So Hermann didn’t _expect_ anything, but perhaps even that had been setting the bar too high. For the moment they spoke to one another, no longer shielded by carefully crafted letters and emails, everything they’d been building for the past few years simply crumbled.

“You’re ridiculous!” Newton screamed. “You’re so far behind the times that I don’t even think you’re in this _century_ anymore!”

“Oh, and are preposterous theories and _Kaiju_ _tattoos_ what are ‘in’ this century? If so, I think I’d be far more comfortable in the past,” Hermann snapped.

Newton rolled his eyes –- so, so green, and Hermann missed that color long after this meeting but he would miss it even more once he was confronted with the dimly glowing orange that would eventually take its place -– and put his hands on his hips. “I thought you were a futurist,” he said.

“I am,” Hermann said. “That’s why I joined the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, that’s why I’m _programming_ the Jaegers. If you think _Aperture_ cares one whit about the future, you had better look around, Geiszler.”

“Uh, excuse you. Listen, corporations are evil, I get it, totally agree, but Aperture is one step closer to solving the Breach than you guys are.” Here, Newton gave Hermann a grin that was practically a sneer. “We’ve got tech like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Then why haven’t we seen it?” Hermann seethed. “This, this is exactly-”

“Oh my God, you’re so _boring_.” Newton was equal parts fury and despair, but it was the second of these that cut Hermann to the core. “In you letters,” Newton continued, “you were this amazing, badass scientist and now you’re nothing but a _conformist_. God, you’re like everyone else who thinks that the Kaiju are just monsters and that Aperture is full to the brim of evil scientists. Why are you _like_ this?”

 _Because this is_ me. But that, apparently, was not what Newton wanted. “We are no longer friends,” Hermann said quietly. “We are no longer pen pals, we are no longer colleagues. I always urged you away from Aperture for your own safety, because they are _dangerous_. But now it is clear to me that you are too foolish to resist them, just as you are too foolish to stop tattooing those monstrosities on your arms. Goodbye, Dr. Geiszler. Do try not to get yourself killed.”

Hermann walked away and didn’t look back. He managed to fume at Newt for a few months before he finally broke down and tried to call him. But Newton didn’t answer his phone –- didn’t answer his email, didn’t answer Hermann’s letters, anything.

At the time, Hermann had accepted the lack of contact as a rejection and had tried to go back to his pre-Geiszlerian life. But almost two years later, when Hermann found himself surrounded by stories about vanished Aperture scientists and face to face with an ever-expanding Breach -– a war that was being lost, rather than won -– he went looking again.

Hermann thinks that even Newton would agree that it had really been a rather poor decision on his part.

 

Newton luxuriates in babbling about nothing as Hermann moves through the next test chamber. Even as Hermann contemplates the room before him, meticulously mapping his strategy in his mind, Newton cannot. Stop. Talking.

“Oh my God, what are you _waiting_ for?” Newton whines. “Just move that cube to this sensor already! This is one of the _easy_ tests, dude. I thought you’d done like a million of these already, why are you so bad at this?”

“I’m sorry if it’s difficult to concentrate with you breathing down my neck,” Hermann hisses, his mental diagram dispersed at the sound of Newton’s voice.

“How am I breathing down your neck? I am literally _incapable_ of breathing down your neck right now.”

“You _childish-_ ”

A voice –- _her_ voice -– comes in through the speakers. “How sweet,” GLaDOS says. “It sounds like you’ve found a friend.”

“Does it?” Hermann mutters.

Newton looks wounded. “Oh, sure, gang up against me with the AI, I see how it is. What happened to Team Science?”

“Any ‘Team Science’ that exists is currently fighting the Kaiju while we’re trapped down here!”

GLaDOS speaks again: “My, my, what bickering. On second thought, I’ve reexamined your file and it turns out that you’re right, Dr. Gottlieb: you don’t have any friends. My mistake.”

“Oh my God, shut _up_ ,” Newton growls.

Hermann ignores both of them, choosing instead to proceed with the test. He moves the cube onto the sensor -– _yes_ , Newton was right, but Hermann doesn’t need to bloody well acknowledge it –- and presses one of the buttons that allows him to enter into another part of the chamber. Newton carefully trails behind him, the hum of his whirring circuitry betraying his anger.

“Just ignore her,” Hermann says. “That’s what I’ve been doing.”

“I can’t just ignore her when she’s saying all that stuff about you!”

“I don’t need my honor to be defended,” Hermann says tightly. “I don’t care what she says. I just need to get out of here.”

“Yeah, _feelings_ , right? Who even cares about those?” Newton mutters sarcastically. “Oh my God, you’re a robot _too,_ aren’t you? Is that why you like her more than me? Just because she’s a constructed personality and I’m not?”

“Let’s not throw the phrase ‘constructed personality’ around here, Newton,” GLaDOS says. “We wouldn’t want to be hypocritical.”

Hermann glances at Newton and frowns when he sees that the core is practically vibrating with rage, his crane moving him around the room in a way that seems to mimic pacing. “Newton,” Hermann says quietly. “What does she mean?”

“What do you _mean_ ‘what does she mean?’ She’s messing with us, it’s all she ever does anymore,” Newton says, circuits whining anxiously.

“She is accusing you of being a constructed personality.”

“So? She accused you of having no friends!”

“Well she was right!” Hermann shouts. “Everything she’s said so far has been true. So who is to say what else isn’t?”

“Uh, how about me? Because I’m a _real_ person!” Newton yells back.

“You _were_ a real person” GLaDOS says. “Before the neurotoxin accident. What a tragic event. But, Dr. Gottlieb, isn’t it nice that his personality could be reconstructed and preserved in that core? Not nice for you, or me, or even him –- you know, since he’s dead -– but I’m sure it’s nice all the same.”

“I’m not dead!” Newton shrieks. His orange eye is glowing and constantly shifting as he moves about the chamber –- in that moment, he seems to Hermann to be almost as mad as GLaDOS. “You got the others with the neurotoxin, but you didn’t get me, you robotic bitch!”

“Please keep the volume of your voice to appropriate levels during the testing in order to avoid disturbing the randomly activated laser rays. They do not like to be disturbed,” GLaDOS says, and then she says no more.

Hermann says nothing as well. His ears are too full of Newton’s screaming and his throat is crammed shut with everything he wants to ask. Silent, Hermann presses the final button that unlocks the chamber’s door. He cannot help but glance at Newton as the core follows him into the next chamber. The core has no tattoos, no green eyes, no discord of hair, no appendages to move in animated accompaniment to an argument. Except for the fact that the core speaks like Newton, it is a foreign object to Hermann.

Newton doesn’t have to ask what he’s thinking. “I can’t believe you’re listening to her. She’s _lying_ , Hermann. I’m not dead, I’m _not_.”

“How would you know?” Hermann says softly. “Think about this objectively. If you _were_ a reconstructed personality, you wouldn’t know it. In fact, how do I know that you’re even a constructed personality core, that you’re really Newton?” Hermann is angry all of a sudden. Or rather, not all of a sudden, because hunger and exhaustion and anxiety and the shock of having Newton and then having him taken away again pools inside him until he can hardly breathe due to the blinding pressure of his thoughts. “You could just be his voice thrown into that core to torment me! I wouldn’t put it past her. You know as well as I do that it’s a possibility, and even a likely one. Just look at the facts. All of these personality cores have _artificial_ personalities; who’s to say that you weren’t just manufactured to _act_ like Newton?”

“Jesus Christ, no wonder you don’t have friends,” Newton snarls. “You really think I’m a copy? You fucking asshole -– would a _copy_ remember how we first met? How you were a complete shit even then, even when you weren’t such a humanist –- yeah, I brought ‘humanist’ back, don’t think I wouldn’t –- and all you would do is tell me off for working at Aperture?”

“And I was right to do so! Look what they’ve done to you!”

“They didn’t do this to me, they didn’t do _anything_ to me. You want to know how I know I’m real, Hermann? Because I did this to myself!”

Silence. Or not silence, but Hermann’s sharp inhales and exhales, joined by Newton’s despite the core’s inability to actually breathe.

“You wouldn’t do that,” Hermann says, his voice tight. “You wouldn’t be so foolish.” But yes, of _course_ Newton would be so foolish, that was the last thing that Hermann ever accused him of before… _this_. “ _Why_?” he whispers. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“You never were creative enough for this place,” Newton says, his tone playing at joviality without quite hitting the mark. “Come on, it was _so easy_. You think only the PPDC can rock the drifting technology? Aperture has been messing with their own stuff for _years_. Except it’s less drifting and more… transference. Same concept though: man and machine are one –- except, I guess it’s a bit more literal with our tech…”

“That answers the question of how,” Hermann says sharply. “But I recall asking _why_.”

Hermann’s eyes are met with the stare of a lone, piercing eye. “Because I’m _awesome_ ,” Newton says flippantly.

“You _uploaded_ your consciousness.” Hermann closes his eyes and leans against the wall. Even with the devices strapped to his shins, his legs suddenly cannot support his body, realization and exhaustion pulling him down in equal measure. Hermann sighs. “‘You got the others with the neurotoxin but you didn’t get me.’ That’s what you said, isn’t it?” he says. “She murdered the other Aperture scientists. And you saved yourself by uploading your consciousness into a personality core.”

Newton shifts uneasily. “Look, it doesn’t matter-”

“Of _course_ it matters.”

“Why should it? I’m stuck in this body either way, what difference does it make how I got here?”

“Because it matters whether you did this because you wanted to or because you had to!” Hermann insists. “Whether you did this out of scientific hubris or…or whether it was the only way to save yourself.”

“None of that proves whether I’m a constructed consciousness or not,” Newt points out. “None of that _matters_.”

“It does to me.”

“I don’t know why,” Newton says. “You’re still not sure whether I’m _real_ or not.”

“No,” Hermann says, “I’m not. Though, for what it’s worth, I’m not sure it even matters anymore. Whether constructed or not, you are undeniably _Newton_.”

Newton’s eye glows slightly brighter at that. “Yeah?”

“A mere copy could hardly be so insufferable,” Hermann says, his lips twitching into something resembling a smile.

“You’re the worst,” Newton laughs. “I am real though, dude. I mean, we can debate philosophical definitions of ‘real’ all we want –- we might as well, actually, since we’re going to have a decent chunk of time down here together –- but I know I’m not dead. And I know how to prove it to you too.”

“How?”

Newton whirls in place, twirling and bouncing as he speaks. “We’re going to find my body,” he says with a hint of glee. “We’re going to find my body and we’re going to put me back in it.”

Hermann gently places a hand on Newton’s body to stop the incessant spinning and then awkwardly lowers it when Newton’s response is to freeze. Hermann clears his throat. “Er. Would that even be possible?”

Newton blinks, a bit dazed, but shrugs. “Sure. Of course, I never tried because, a) Pons systems are a bitch to make when you don’t have hands, and b) my crane…” Newton looks a bit embarrassed at this. “…doesn’t quite extend to where my body could be. _Would_ be. So I can’t get there on my own.”

“I can’t get there on my own either,” Hermann admits. “I’m hopelessly lost in this pit of a laboratory.”

“Yeah, give me a grad student office any day –- anything is better than this.” Newton shudders. “Bright side: I am _not_ lost here. Well. A bit lost. Kind of lost. But I’m connected to the interface, so my potential for being lost is far lower than yours.”

“How reassuring,” Hermann says dryly. “Presuming you can lead us to your body-” _presuming there is an intact body for us to_ _find_ , he thinks “-we can then upload your consciousness back into it and escape from this place.” Unbidden, a breath of laughter escapes Hermann. “By Jove, Newton, we can _escape_ from here.”

“Yeah!” Newton whirls in place again, his circuits humming happily. “Okay, let’s do this fucking thing -– let’s go get me a body!”

 

“It’s a _portal gun_ ,” GLaDOS told him, as if he were dense. She hardly ever spoke to Hermann as if he were someone who held a Ph.D. in applied mathematics. Hermann had tried emphasizing his qualifications earlier on -- sure he could be trapped underground by an artificial intelligence, but to be _mocked_ by it was more than slightly insulting -- but he’d received only snide congratulations in return.

“Well what am I supposed to do with it?” Hermann said, studying the sleek, white plastic of the gun’s wide barrel –- it looked like a ray gun out of a science fiction film -– before reluctantly curling his fingers around the grip.

A long silence. Then: “I am unable to answer questions to which the answers are hopelessly obvious. I would apologize for the inconvenience, but I don’t actually feel sorry.”

Hermann sighed, but he was far too used to the passive aggressive -– or just plain aggressive -– comments of the voice to do anything but compliantly shoot the gun.

And out of it came a portal. Hermann gaped at the blue portal, at the swirling pool of blue energy about the size of his body that came into existence on the wall. _Just like the Breach_ , Hermann thought. _This is everything I knew I could find, everything I_ hoped _to discover here. This could save the world._

Hermann shot another beam of energy on the opposite wall and marveled when the two portals become a single corridor that transcended space. “Portals,” he gasped. “As in… _portals_.”

“Yes, the portal gun tends to create those,” GLaDOS said dryly.

Hermann stood at the mouth of the portal, shaking. Taking a deep breath, he quickly thrust his hand into the portal, stunned when he could see that same hand coming out of the portal _on the opposite end of the room._ “Impossible,” Hermann whispered, tears flooding his eyes. “Just… _impossible_.” Perhaps it was foolish of him to speak of impossibilities post K-Day, but he’d always dealt with the Breach in the abstract, in numbers and calculations that could shape the impossible into theory and prediction. The portal gun, however, was immediate, breaking down everything Hermann knew about the world right in front of his eyes without caring that it didn’t make _sense_ , without caring that it broke the laws of _physics_ –- and yet it was beautiful. Hermann stepped through one portal and came out the other, stumbling in astonishment as he himself broke the same physical laws that the gun did, as he stared down at the object that only science and a whole lot of _fuck you_ could have ever created. Hermann blinked and tears flowed down his cheeks.

“Oh,” GLaDOS said. Perhaps Hermann was simply too overwhelmed to correctly process her words, but he imagined that her voice was softer. “You’re a scientist.”

“Yes,” he said, wiping his tears. “A physicist.”

GLaDOS paused and then said, “Scientists look so peculiar when they discover something new.”

Hermann didn’t know what to say, too overcome by emotion to do anything more than nod. There was an entire history within the tone of GLaDOS’ voice, one that Hermann couldn’t even begin to fathom. _Did she know the Aperture scientists?_ he wondered. _Did she know Newton? Has she seen the look on his face when he discovers something new_ –- I _haven’t even seen that look, but has she? Or is she the reason Newton disappeared?_ He didn’t know how to voice these questions and doubted that GLaDOS would answer them even if he did.

GLaDOS ignored Hermann for an entire day before returning to tell him how unattractive he looked in orange. The insult meant little to Hermann. He’d never held any illusions as to his own attractiveness –- but down here, that hardly mattered. Both he and GLaDOS knew that the only thing that mattered down here was solving puzzles and solving them quickly. And if there was one thing the apocalypse and the PPDC had been training Hermann to do, it was that.

 

As much as Hermann hates to admit it, he completes the tests far more quickly with Newton at his side. Yes, they still bicker endlessly and Newton’s chatter is more or less a constant distraction, but their explosive arguments force Hermann to process the tests faster, to find solutions in minutes that would have normally taken him hours. Hermann has always felt a bit of a thrill at puzzle-solving –- even down here, he cannot deny the intellectual pleasure of working through the tests –- but it is much more satisfying to go through the chambers with Newton here. When he was alone, the rush of completing a test was always soured by the way that the contraptions on his shins dug into his legs or by GLaDOS’ jabs at his family history. These things are still there, but they are somewhat tempered by Newton’s presence.

Hermann also feels grateful for Newton’s presence for another reason, but it is a reason he has difficulty articulating. Maybe it is the simple fact that Newton’s skill sets perfectly complement his own. But no, that's not quite the whole of it. Rather, Newton's presence is a comfort in this strange, perilous world because he is everything Hermann is not -- and thus, he has always been able to do what Hermann cannot. Perhaps the reverse is true as well. But at this moment, Hermann does not feel as though that is the case. He does not feel anything at all except for sheer terror, for he cannot do anything but keep his gaze fixed upon the floor and tremble silently.

“Hermann? Hermann, come on, get up,” Newton says, nudging his shoulder. “You shot the portal -– all you have to do is jump.”

Hermann looks at the abyss below them and quickly closes his eyes. “I can’t.”

“Since when are you afraid of heights-”

“Since now!” Hermann snaps. He can practically see the questions buzzing through Newton’s circuitry, the core’s orange eye lit up in confusion. _You wanted to be a pilot_ , Newton is thinking right now, so loudly that Hermann can hardly _stand_ it. “There’s a difference,” he hisses, “between flying a plane in the relative safety of a cockpit and BASE jumping in an underground lab facility!”

“Technically not BASE jumping, if that makes you feel any better,” Newton supplies helpfully. “Since you don’t have a parachute.”

Hermann presses his forehead into his knees, refusing to open his eyes. He laughs to himself. “You are dismally _bad_ at this.”

“What, were you _expecting_ me to be really good at this comforting thing? I was never that great of a human being, Hermann, even when I was…well, human.”

Newton’s flippant tone is at odds with the gravity of his words and Hermann is not sure if there is meaning in that. He cannot tell, not now when he is trying to focus on breathing. “As you can see, I am not good at being human either, Newton,” Hermann says after a long exhale. “And I’m afraid I don’t have the excuse of robotic imprisonment for my shortcomings.”

“‘Robotic imprisonment.’ Jesus,” Newton says, rolling his eye. “Do we need to have the humanist talk again?”

“You cannot borrow the word humanist to represent an inequality of mostly non-sentient beings!” Hermann says. “It only helps _you_ , you selfish fool!”

“ _I’m_ selfish? You’re the selfish one, you fucking-”

Hermann cannot take this anymore. He brings himself to his feet, closes his eyes, and lets himself fall over the ledge, rage and wind filling his ears with a loud whistling sound as he plummets. By the time he opens his eyes, Hermann’s fall is over and the momentum from his descent has thrown him into one portal and out the other, flinging him across the room. Adrenaline leaves his hands shaking as Newton slowly makes his way over to him.

“You…you…” Hermann swallows. “You made me angry on purpose. So I would forget my fear.”

“Obviously,” Newton says. “You’re the most predictable guy, Herms. If the Kaiju were more like you we probably would have graphed their behavior models by now.”

Any residual anger seeps out of Hermann, leaving him exhausted. He is weary of this underground place that is even more complicated and has danger more insidious than the world above. “We _have_ graphed their behavior models,” Hermann says gently.

“Oh…”

“Newton-”

“Just tell me, alright? I don’t need you to protect me from this.”

Newton’s eye is closed now. Hermann doesn’t want to say anything, doesn’t want to let on just how much he’d meant the words ‘robotic imprisonment.’

“We met in person in late 2017,” Hermann says, forcing the words through his dry, constricted throat. “I attempted to contact you several months later, in 2018, but you did not reply. I assume your consciousness had been…”

“Passive voice,” Newton says, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “Don’t.”

He is looking right at Hermann. Hermann does not want to meet that eye that should be plural and should be green, but he does. _Newton_ _is so selfish,_ he thinks. _How can he ask this of me?_

 _How can you think of denying him it?_ Hermann sighs. “I assume _you_ had transferred your consciousness by then,” he corrects himself. “I went looking for you in 2020. And here we are. That’s all I know, I’m afraid. I’m not sure how long I’ve been down here myself.”

“Two years?” Newton squeaks. “I’ve been down here for _two years_? That can’t be right.”

Hermann looks away. “I’m sorry, Newton."

“It doesn’t _feel_ like two years,” Newton says desperately. “I thought maybe six months, a year at the most, but two whole years?”

“We only know that you have been missing for two years,” Hermann says. “We don’t know if you’ve been in this body for that long. Maybe the transference took a long time –- you said yourself that the technology wasn’t quite like the Pons. Maybe you haven’t been conscious for the entire two years. We don’t know for sure.”

“Oh, at least I haven’t been _conscious_ the whole time I’ve been trapped here.” Newton laughs. “And you think _I’m_ bad at comforting?”

Hermann laughs too, but there is little humor in it. “If you recall, I never claimed to be any better.”

“I didn’t actually _believe_ you.” Newton sighs. “Two years, huh? Time flies. Except I don’t think that phrase was ever meant to be used under these circumstances, if we’re being honest here.”

“Appropriation,” Hermann reminds him, nudging the core slightly.

Without lips, Newton obviously cannot smile, but his eye does glow a bit brighter. “I knew you’d come around. So, come on, out with it. Does everyone miss me? Are the biologists in K-Science despondent? I hope Jerry is at least a _little_ bit sad, but he never really liked me anyway so I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t.”

Hermann bites his lip. “Ah…”

Newton’s eye narrows. “Out with it.”

What is the use in putting it off any longer? “You are presumed dead,” Hermann says quietly. “All Aperture Science employees are; you all went off the map, vanished. No one questioned it -– who has time to count casualties in war time? Many assumed you’d been killed off in one of the attacks while conducting K-Science research.”

“Oh. Yeah. I probably should have realized that. I guess I can’t blame you guys for not assuming capture by megalomaniacal AI.” Newton seems reluctant in not assigning this blame though. “So what, no one looked for me?”

“Of course they did. But there was nothing to find. Just as there will be nothing to find with me,” Hermann says. “I’m sure I’ve been assumed dead by now as well.”

“But you came looking for me,” Newton says. “You didn’t think I was dead.”

“I didn’t know _what_ to think,” Hermann corrects, a bit flustered. “I knew that you were officially dead, but…”

“But you didn’t buy it? That’s not very _logical_ , Hermann, I’m touched.”

“It doesn’t matter what I thought!” Hermann snaps. “We were losing the Kaiju War and needed something new. You said it yourself, Aperture had the answers. They _had_ the technology, everyone knew it. I just needed to _find_ it.”

“And so you started investigating,” Newton sighs. “Hermann, that was _not_ a good idea.”

“Yes, I realize that now,” Hermann says. “And yet, funnily enough, the thought that I’d be gassed and dragged miles underground didn’t occur to me as I was visiting Aperture’s records office.”

“Maybe it should have,” Newton says. “You always knew Aperture was dangerous, man. You shouldn’t have taken that risk.”

“Newton Geiszler, telling me I shouldn’t take a risk. Perhaps the world has already ended and we simply haven’t noticed down here,” Hermann says. He cannot help but smile at Newton’s burst of laughter.

Hermann shakes his head. “I don’t regret it,” he says. “I should, but I do not. I found the technology we need to finish mapping the Breach –- the closest thing we have to actual _interdimensional_ technology, Newton.” Hermann holds up the portal gun. “And I found you, didn’t I? I can hardly regret that.”

“You _sap_ ,” Newton accuses him. “You like me! Don’t even pretend anymore, no one’s going to believe you after this.”

“It’s not too late for me to regret coming down here, you know,” Hermann says, but when Newton raises an eyebrow –- Hermann is still astonished that Newton can give the impression of the gesture without the corresponding body part -- Hermann only shrugs. He doesn’t need to say that the turn of the Kaiju War only gave him the excuse to conduct an investigation that he’d been wanting to start for a long time. Hermann could mention that he’d specifically been searching for Newton’s records in the Aperture office before he’d been taken, but he doesn’t. Hermann doesn’t need to say these things because Newton has been alone with his own musings down here for almost two years -– the core has probably already figured out most of them by himself.

“You’re a good human, Hermann,” Newton says.

“As are you.” He stands up and, after a moment, he bumps his shoulder against Newton. “Come on, we should move to the next chamber.”

 

Many people, upon first meeting Hermann -– _especially_ if they meet him alongside Newton –- assume him to be the cool, collected type. And yet –- and Newton _knows_ this, that’s how he knew how to rid Hermann of his fear by filling him with anger –- Hermann only developed his mantra of _ignore her ignore her ignore her_ after what must have been weeks –- or could it have been months? There was simply no way to _tell_ down here -- of yelling himself hoarse at GLaDOS.

Back when he still foolishly succumbed to her verbal jabs, he never felt the better for it. His shouts didn’t fill his limbs with anticipation and force his synapses to fire, not like they did when he screamed at Newton. His and GLaDOS’ arguments were instead inherently imbalanced, with Hermann rushing to catch up with her thoughts and the corresponding effort leaving him even more exhausted than the tests.

And yet, Hermann soon found her to be just like the portal gun –- impossible, frustrating, and yet _beautiful._ When Hermann first meet her, when her insults were still foreign and when the tests were new enough to be fascinating, he asked her questions. He was trapped, yes, but he thought that he was trapped _with_ her. That she could perhaps help him.

“Who built you?” Hermann asked as he stumbled through one of the first tests. He was still getting used to the devices strapped to his shins. It was taking awhile to reconcile himself to the fact that he could _jump_ , let alone that he could jump from such vast heights.

“Dr. Hermann Gottlieb,” the voice said, as it tasting the name. “According to the file I’m creating for you, you were ‘built’ by Dr. Lars and Annabell Gottlieb. Would you consider this correct?”

“In the technical sense, yes,” Hermann said, and then paused so that he could manage the courage to leap from one platform to another.

“How like a scientist, to embrace technicality,” the voice said dryly. “However, you were no more built by your parents than I was built by Aperture.”

Hermann scowled and shot a portal into a wall. He tried to figure out where exactly he could place the second one. “I concede your point,” he said. “‘Built’ is not the optimal word.”

The voice paused. “No,” she said finally. “It is not. Do you really think the orange portal goes there? You’ve done several tests already and yet you have not improved. It’s rather sad.”

Of course, the insults continued and Hermann soon learned to hate her, to flinch at the sound of her voice, but even now he finds himself hanging on her every word, even when he tells himself that he must not -– he _must_ not because that way lies madness -- acknowledge her. Above all things, he must not give in, or he will lose himself in his anger and his hatred. Newton would happily point out how bitter of a man he has become, but that was never the path Hermann willingly chose, it was never what he'd wanted for himself. That's why he joined the PPDC -- he'd desperately wanted to embrace the spirit of hope that the organization embodies. It is why even now, in this place of endless confusion, he continues to follow Newton in the hopes of getting them both safely back home.

 

Even after years of separation, Newton is still more attuned to Hermann than any person –- especially any person as infuriating as Newton -– has a right to be. After Hermann freezes in place to listen to GLaDOS’ instructions -– _I would try avoiding the toxic green waste down there. But what do I know? Actually, maybe you should try it out. Just to make sure I’m not wrong. Go on, jump in_ –- he comes back to himself to find Newton staring at him.

“What?” Hermann says.

Newton squints at him. “I can’t believe you, man.”

“ _What?_ ”

“You’re fascinated by her! I mean, terrified -– and yeah, don’t blame you there, Herms -- but every time she talks you look like you did when you gave your talk at the K-Sci conference. Like she’s something you wish you could have coded.” Newton whirls slowly in place, as if deep in thought. “You have such a robot boner for her, dude.”

Hermann reddens. “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have a robot…I don’t have _that_ for anyone!”

“Really? Because I thought you had at least a little one for me.”

“I certainly do _not_. I cannot believe you need the reassurance, but my fascination with her is of a professional variety,” Hermann says.

“‘Fascination,’” Newton mutters. “Hermann, you do know that she literally tried to kill me? And you, I guess, but she got way closer with me!”

“I know that,” Hermann hisses. “I am not a fool -– I condone neither her nor her actions. I despise GLaDOS. But, Newton, I spent the first half of my life studying everything I could about artificial intelligence, only to come to the conclusion that it could not exist. At least, not in my lifetime. That was fine, I accepted that. But her and the other personality cores. Newton, they are _true_ artificial intelligence.” Hermann grips his portal gun tightly -– somewhere in-between jumping off dizzyingly high precipices and completing countless tests, it’d become his comfort object. This fact disturbs him, but he clutches the gun to his chest all the same. “And I…it is like I said to you before. I do not regret my time here. Even if I did not imagine my boyhood dream of sentient robots working out quite like this.”

Newton nods. He focuses and refocuses his lens in what Hermann has deduced is something like a nervous tic. “I don’t think you get to call me a Kaiju groupie anymore,” Newton finally jokes. “You AI _grrroupie_.”

Hermann rolls his eyes. “Do shut up, Newton.”

 

Hermann isn’t sure how long he and Newton have been solving these tests. It’s been at least a week, as Hermann has needed to eat and sleep multiple times since Newton has joined him. Newton always gives an obnoxiously long sigh when Hermann stops to lie down. The core constantly complains of boredom, of the _hours_ he most occupy himself while Hermann is resting, but Hermann only sharply reminds Newton that not all of them have the body of a robot, and that some of them need _sleep_ , thank you very much.

Newton takes to sitting in Hermann’s lap when these breaks occur, and Hermann cannot bring himself to protest. He’s unsure if he could ever admit this, but the humming warmth and glow of Newton’s circuits are a comfort in the chill of the dark lab.

Newton also finds Hermann’s food breaks incredibly frustrating, though for entirely different reasons. While the core had never thought much of sleep even as a human who’d once needed it, Newton _pines_ for food in a way that is almost sad. Hermann catches Newton eyeing him hungrily as he steals another bland, packaged meal from one of the Aperture break rooms strewn throughout the facility.

“What is it?” Hermann says, putting his fork down. The fork is a luxury. He found it sealed in plastic inside one of the desks -– for once, a _clean_ utensil that he could concede to using.

“I miss _eating_ ,” Newton moans from his place on the cushions. He is unattached from his crane and lying on the couch opposite of Hermann.

Hermann snorts. “Not eating this, you don’t.”

“Man, I’ll take anything at this point. You eat for almost thirty years and then you just don’t have to anymore. It is _not_ fun. I want a fucking cheeseburger so badly, Herms,” Newton whines.

“That will be first on my list of things to do once we get out of here,” Hermann says, rolling his eyes. “No need to call the PPDC, no need to tell anyone of our discoveries, or tell anyone that you’re _alive_. Our first priority should obviously be disgusting, fattening burgers.”

“Dude, if you are telling me that you wouldn’t kill for a burger right now, you are just _lying_ to me,” Newton says, his eyes fixed upon the biscuit that Hermann found in the food package.

Hermann nibbles at the biscuit, grimacing as he finds it inedible –- years of neglect had turned it dry and hard. He looks at it despondently, which is all the answer Newton seems to need.

“That’s what I thought,” Newton says, closing his eye. If Newton were human, Hermann thinks that the man would be stretching out right now, or perhaps flopping over onto his stomach. Hermann’s stomach flutters at the image and he quickly turns back to his meal.

“Describe the couch to me,” Newton yawns. The yawn is purely self-indulgent, as the core cannot feel physical exhaustion in his current body.

“The couch?”

“Yeah. I want to know what it feels like.”

It is a strange thing to be asked, but the question is not necessarily a surprising one. When Hermann had once asked about Newton’s sensory capabilities in his robotic body, he’d learned –- after parsing through Newton’s rambling, incoherent answer -– that Newton cannot feel much, or at least, that he can no longer feel in the same way that Hermann can.

Nonetheless, Hermann squirms in his seat. “Er. Well, it’s a couch. You’ve been on couches before.”

Newton groans. “You’re literally useless! You can describe the inside of an inter-dimensional portal but you can’t describe a _couch_?”

“The fate of the world does not rely upon my ability to spew _prose_ ,” Hermann snaps. “I’m a physicist, not a poet.”

“Whatever, _Bones_.” Newton seems to give up on him and his eye closes once again.

Hermann hesitates. Yes, the fate of the world does not depend on this, but perhaps some human part of Newton that has been left unable to feel does. “It is, er…soft,” he says finally.

Newton waits for Hermann to say more, but the mathematician cannot think of what other words could describe a couch. “What kind of soft?” Newton asks.

Hermann sighs, but closes his eyes and tries to concentrate on the give of the cushions beneath him. “The cushions aren’t very thick,” he says. “It’s just a break room couch. But when you run your hands over the fabric, it still feels smooth –- once you can get past the dust anyway. It’s not exactly extraordinary…it sinks down a little, I suppose. And…” Hermann is fumbling, he knows he is, but Newton gives a content sigh from the other side of the room.

“Sounds comfy,” Newton says.

Hermann agrees. Describing the luxury of having a couch to sit on is enough to lull him into the sort of relaxed state that he could not easily manage above ground, let alone here. Hermann cannot help but smile at the lazy hum of Newton’s circuits. It’s moments like these when he can almost forget where they are and what they’re trying to do.

Unfortunately, those moments tend to be few and far between -– it’s hard to forget much of anything down here, in this place where danger is a constant and time hardly seems to pass. Even when they are not arguing about escape, they think about it, especially in the long silences that tend to surround them like a living thing.

Newton loves to break these silences. He occasionally even feels inclined to break them with something other than an argument with Hermann. These conversations tend to revolve around what their priorities will be if -– _when_ \-- they escape from Aperture (“Not cheeseburgers, Newton”). Newton speaks endlessly of food and monster movies and having hands to once again get messy in dissections. Hermann makes a face at these fantasies, but then admits that he misses nothing more than writing with chalk and eating dark, bitter chocolate.

“You know,” Newton says, after Hermann speaks of wanting bread –- warm, fresh bread, not the stale, frozen stuff he finds down here. “I know this great bakery near MIT. Scones the size of your _hands,_ Herms! And the bread, _ugh_ , it’s so good,” Newton groans. “Oily and salted and perfect. That’s where we’re going when we escape, like, _immediately._ As soon as we get out of here I’m taking you on a date there.”

Because they are both trapped and because they have been arguing and existing together for days -– because Newton thinks that Hermann is good at being human -– and because Hermann _wants_ Newton, has always wanted him, Hermann nods. “You’re paying,” is all he says.

If it were possible for a personality core to blush, Newton would be beet red. As it is, he’s as flustered as a robot can be, twirling and twitching and refocusing his lens multiple times. “Are you kidding me?” Newton says. “I finally get you to admit that you like me and I don’t even have a body that can _kiss_ you?”

“I’ve admitted nothing of the sort,” Hermann sniffs, but he can’t hold back a smile when Newton sits in his lap.

“Mmmhm. Whatever. You love me, admit it,” Newton says, looking up at him. “You love me and my hard, robotic body.”

Hermann throws Newton out of his lap, but the core’s crane compensates for the displacement and Newton manages not to fall over.

“You’re ridiculous,” Hermann says, but he’s laughing. The laugh chokes his throat as he realizes how long it’s been since he’s truly laughed, _sincerely_ laughed. Even once Newton joined him, Hermann’s smiles had been rare, somewhat fragile things and his laughter had mostly been bitter. Hermann wasn’t sure if he even remembered how to smile until just a moment ago. _I want to go home_ , he thinks. _I want_ us _to be home._

Newton doesn’t question Hermann’s sudden silence, already seeming to know what he is thinking. He curls up once again in Hermann’s lap, pressing his head gently into Hermann’s stomach. “You should get some sleep,” Newton says. “We’re almost there.”

Hermann nods. It should take him a long time to fall asleep, but he does so almost instantly, his hands resting lightly on Newton the entire night.

 

 

The block of stasis chambers -- Relaxation Chambers, according to Newton -- resembles a hive: room upon room stacked against each other in an infinite and endless wall. Hermann can only look up in despair. “Please tell me you know which one you’ll be in,” he says.

“I totally know.” At Hermann’s glare, Newton grumbles, “I probably know.”

Hermann has to hold the core at this point, as Newton’s crane reached its fullest extent about a day ago. Newton is clearly still irritated by this, but is unable to do anything but refocus his lens in distaste.

Hermann sighs, but lets Newton direct him to a particular stasis room within the block. They stand outside the room for a very long time, simply staring at the door. It is unnerving to see a wooden door here after so long of being surrounded by metal and glass. As they hesitate at the doorway, Hermann stares at the grains and imperfections in the wood. He does not know what to do. Newton is distressed and Hermann does not know how to respond. The core’s circuits are hot and his whirrs of distress are audible.

“Newton,” Hermann says quietly.

“Let’s go in,” Newton says, his eye fixed upon the door.

Hermann says no more, opening the door and entering the room. The stasis chamber resembles a hotel room more than anything: a bit cramped, a bit musty, with hardly anything more than a bed populating the space.

Silence. And then: “I’m here!” Newton gasps and sputters. “I’m actually here!”

Hermann swallows heavily as he spots the figure on the bed. Indeed, there lies Newton, eyes closed and chest rising and falling gently as the bed and its various tubes keep him alive. If it is unnerving to hear Newton’s voice come out of a personality core, it’s even more so to see his actual body this still. _He’s still wearing that awful skinny tie_ , Hermann thinks, a bit dazed. Newton’s lips look dry. They are also slightly parted, a vulnerability so blatant that it almost feels shameful to continue looking upon Newton’s body. Hermann aches to see him this way, with an expression so closely resembling sleep and contentment when in reality this body is nothing more than an empty shell.

Newton feels far less conflicted -- Hermann is certain that if Newton were capable of it, he would be wriggling in his grasp right now. “Hermann!” he whines. “There’s a crane on the wall, hurry up and attach me to it! I want to see me!”

Hermann does as he’s bid, plugging Newton into the crane and watching as the core hovers about his own body.

“Do I really look like this? Holy shit, this is _weird_ ,” Newton says, unable to keep still. “And kind of unsettling, if we’re being honest, but I’m way more excited about the opportunity to see my body from an _outside_ perspective. I wonder if there’s a paper I could write about this.”

“Possibly, though I doubt the necessary explanation would be worth any sort of discovery made here.” Hermann approaches the body too, unable to stop himself from trailing his hands down Newton’s arms. “Your tattoos,” he murmurs. “I’d forgotten what they looked like.”

“I…I think I did too,” Newton says. He sounds as if he’s about to cry, even though there are no physical tears to crowd Newton’s non-existent throat. “I really missed them.”

“As did I.”

Newton turns to Hermann, his eye wide and aglow. “Hermann. We did it. We found my body!”

“By God, we did,” Hermann whispers, laughing as Newton orbits around him in a sort of dance. “Stay still, you idiot, or you’ll end up striking me on the head with your crane!”

Newton ignores him, continuing to dart around Hermann. “I have a body!” he sings. “I have a _body_!”

“You have a body!” Hermann cries. He wants to spread out his arms and shout, but he is certain that Newton _will_ accidentally hit him if he does that. He settles for laughing in relief, serenity bubbling in his stomach for the first time in years as he watches the core dance around the room. When Newton finally slows down enough to face him, the core’s eye glows with euphoria and he hums with an energy that Hermann has never heard from this body before. Without thinking about it, he places his hands on Newton’s body and kisses him.

It is a brief kiss, but even before it is over Newton is frozen, staring at Hermann, his eye wide. “I know that was lame because you were technically kissing my eye and I couldn’t actually feel it,” he says, “but that might have been the best kiss ever.”

“Good lord, if that’s the case, never tell me about your other kisses,” Hermann says, but he blushes all the same. “May I…”

Before he can ask, Newton flings himself forward, managing to knock himself against Hermann’s forehead in his excitement instead of touching the other man’s lips. Hermann groans, doubling over and holding his forehead in his hands.

“Oh my God! Are you okay? I’m not that coordinated with this body,” Newton says, hovering over Hermann.

“Were you ever coordinated with your _actual_ body?” Hermann hisses, his head throbbing in pain. Newton’s human body sits innocently on the bed and Hermann glares at it. “You do realize you are a hunk of _metal_ , Newton. That _hurt_.”

“Sorry!” Newton squeaks. “Can we try again?”

Hermann sighs, but places a quick kiss right above the core’s eye. “How about we make it so that we may share an actual kiss?”

“Yeah! We definitely should do that. Make a Pons, that is. And kiss, but first make a Pons. Except, well, I might not be able to help that much. Uh, no hands and all that.”

Hermann sighs, but looks fondly at both of Newton’s bodies before getting to work.

 

Developing the Pons technology took the PPDC about a year, which was incredibly impressive and remains to date one of the most spectacular things that humanity has ever accomplished. Between Hermann, Newton, and their collective knowledge of the tech, it takes them about a week to make one from scraps they find nearby. Their productivity is even further improved by the fact that GLaDOS cannot reach them here, cannot deride them –- this place is out of her sight, and for once, Hermann feels almost free.

Though any relief that this gives him flickers out once he lays his eyes upon their finished product. The piece of machinery they’ve cobble together is…dubious, to say the least.

“You cannot seriously be contemplating using this,” Hermann says, holding the cap skeptically.

“For all this is a research facility, we didn’t exactly have a plethora of materials hanging around, did we, Hermann? Besides, I got myself in here in the first place, didn’t I? Reversing the process will be a piece of-” Newton shakes his head, cutting himself off. When he speaks again, his voice is subdued for reasons Hermann can only suspect –- aside from the obvious complications that came with his new body, Newton has mostly hidden the toll that being in Aperture has taken on him.

“It will just be easy, okay?” he says.

“You have no evidence to support that conclusion, Newton,” Hermann murmurs.

Newton presses himself against Hermann’s forehead so that his eye fills Hermann’s line of sight. _Your eyes should be green_ , Hermann thinks desperately.

“This will work,” Newton promises.

“I hope you’re right,” Hermann says. He bites his lip. “It doesn’t matter if this doesn’t-” He stops. Of course it matters. Taking a breath, he continues, “Whether this works or not, we are getting out of here, Newton. No matter what body you’re in, we are escaping this place.”

Newton stills, but only for a moment before going back to his continual twitches. “Pretty sure you’d be the only guy at work with a personality core for a boyfriend, Hermann. Might make for awkward double dates. Or _awesome_ ones, actually, I bet Tendo would be up for it.”

Hermann’s face heats at the word ‘boyfriend’ but he manages to roll his eyes. “I want _you_ as a boyfriend, you idiot,” he says. “I don’t care whether you have a blasted core for a body.”

“I wish I could kiss you right now,” Newton sighs. “Let’s get me in this damn Pons so I can, okay?”

“Very well,” Hermann breathes. Turning away from Newton and towards…well, Newton, he places the Pons cap on the other man’s human body. It feels so odd to touch Newton in the first place, but it’s downright unsettling to touch the man when he’s in such repose, when his skin is so pale and cool. Hermann’s hand lingers and he smooths back the other man’s unruly hair.

“You are just head over heels for me, aren’t you?” Newton says, nudging Hermann’s shoulder.

Hermann raises an eyebrow. “I rather am,” is all he says, stroking Newton’s hair once more and readjusting the Pons cap before turning back to Newton’s robotic body. The personality core stares at him reverently, his eye wide.

“I am too, just a little bit,” Newton whispers.

Hermann kisses Newton before steering him gently towards the bed. “I’m going to plug you in now,” he says, before attaching the cord into the back of Newton’s body.

“Ah _haaah_ , that was _weird_!” Newton says, shuddering a bit. “I don’t think I can plug my laptop charger in with a clear conscious anymore.”

“Oh, for the love of God. Can we please just do this thing so that you no longer empathize with _laptops_?”

“I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever stop doing that.” Newton screws his eye shut. “Okay. Okay. Get it over with.”

“I’ll be right here the entire time,” Hermann says. To say anything else would sound too much like a goodbye, so he is silent as he presses the button that initiates the drift-transference.

Newton’s human body immediately arcs, his placid facial expression at odds with the tense bowstring of his spine. The personality core jerks in place, shaking, its eye glowing brighter than ever.

“Newton. Newton!” Hermann says, forgetting himself and placing his hands on the core. It is hot, its circuits whirring faster and louder than ever, and Newton’s human body begins to shake.

“No, no, no.” Hermann places a hand on both of Newton’s bodies, not sure which one he’s supposed to be protecting. He isn’t sure how long this goes on for, if it’s seconds or minutes of himself hovering over the two shaking bodies, before the light of the personality core goes dim. “No!” Hermann says, clutching the core. “Newton, _please,_ no.” Hermann tries not to cry. He places his forehead against the core, not caring when the heat of the object burns his skin.

The pain does bring Hermann to his senses, however, and he shakes his head. _Of course he’s not there anymore, Gottlieb,_ he thinks. _That was the whole_ point _of this._

Hermann sets the core gently down before turning back to Newton’s human body. The other man has stopped shaking at least, but his eyes _are still closed_ and Hermann doesn’t know what to do. “Newton,” he says, lightly shaking the other man’s shoulder. “Wake up this instant, you stupid man.” He presses his forehead against Newton’s. “Wake up and brag about how well it worked or so help me…”

“Like you’re going to even finish that threat.”

Newton’s voice is weak, but it comes from his delightfully _human_ body. His eyes slowly open and Hermann’s throat constricts with how green they are.

“I might have,” Hermann whispers.

“Nah,” Newton says, his voice scratchy and hoarse. “No one can mess with this.”

 _If only that were true_. Hermann’s stomach turns and he presses himself even closer to Newton. “Please,” he breathes. “Never do this to me again.”

“But Pons are so awesome.” Newton’s voice sounds slurred -- the man’s practically half asleep, but he still insists on making a retort. “I’ll let you know next time though. Text you or something.”

“Idiot,” Hermann sighs. Newton seems incoherent with exhaustion. The transference process must be far more fatiguing than Hermann estimated.

Newton echoes Hermann’s thoughts when he says, “Yeah, well, you like me. Can we sleep now? I think we should sleep.”

Hermann doesn’t want to sleep. Only a minute ago he was practically having a heart attack watching his boyfriend seize in the throes of an ungodly drift. Is it even safe to let Newton sleep now? Was transferring consciousnesses like getting a concussion; did Hermann need to keep Newton awake or check in on him? Even Hermann can realize the stupidity of his thoughts, but he cannot stop them, cannot stop himself from grasping Newton’s hand. Relief flows through him, steady and strong, when Newton squeezes his hand in return.

“Trust me, okay?” Newton says. “I haven’t slept in the past two years, so we are sleeping, and then we are getting out of here and getting me a cheeseburger, alright?”

“I thought you were going to take me to a bakery,” Hermann murmurs.

“We’ll get there,” Newton says, his eyes slipping shut. “Priorities, man, I gotta ingest as much saturated fat as I can take before I romance you.”

“Disgusting,” Hermann laughs softly, shaking his head.

“You say that now, but just wait until we get to McDonald’s. You’ll have never been so seduced. God, I can _feel_ this bed. I can _feel_ your hand!” Newton sighs. “Best day ever, am I right, Hermann?”

Hermann wouldn’t go that far, but he can admit that it’s nice to finally touch Newton, to finally lie down in an actual bed and feel Newton’s pulse and rest without fear.

 

He wakes to find Newton sitting up, staring at the wall as he absently pets Hermann’s hair.

“Couldn’t sleep much,” he whispers, before Hermann can ask. “I guess my body hasn’t been out of stasis for long enough for me to be physically tired. Can you believe that? Two years I've wanted to just take a nap and I think I slept for about an hour.”

“Newton…”

Newton pushes up his glasses, then looks down at his hand as if he’s surprised how naturally the action flowed. It is a movement he’s long been deprived of, but apparently has no idea what to do with now that he’s suddenly got it back. “You know you’re three years older than me now?” he says. “Or your body is anyway. It used to only be one, but stasis, baby, that stuff gets the job done. Now you really _are_ an old man.”

Hermann sits up and takes Newton’s hand in his own. “In terms physicality, yes, I am now a bit older than you. But in terms of _maturity_ , Newton, I am decades ahead of you. Three physical years, I think we can work with.”

Newton snorts. “Don’t even _pretend_ like you’re more mature than me, Hermann. If I’m a pissbaby, you’re a pissbaby too.”

“Is there an option here where neither of us are ‘pissbabies?’”

Newton giggles at the look of distaste spreading itself across Hermann’s face. “Given our history, it’s at least a bit unlikely. But, hey, aliens came out of the ocean. I'm in a _human_ body again! Maybe another miracle could happen too.”

“The Kaiju are not miracles,” Hermann grumbles. “And putting aside the fact that miracles do not exist, I don’t think any of what’s happened to us could qualify as one.”

Newton rests his head against Hermann’s shoulder and is quiet for a moment. “How can you say that while holding this perfect specimen of a hand?” he says finally. “Do you know how _precise_ biologists’ hands are?”

Though Hermann cannot see Newton, he can practically _hear_ the ‘seductive’ wiggling of his eyebrows. He sighs and holds the hand tighter. Newton does not appear to want to talk about what they’ve been through right now. This is fair: neither does Hermann. He turns Newton’s face towards him and runs a hand along that human cheek, marveling at Newton’s look of blatant adoration. They will have to negotiate this at some point, have to map out how their past and their time in Aperture and their futures intersect and recombine, but Newton’s eyes are green and maybe that on its own can be enough for now.

Hermann kisses him. Warm lips greet him instead of cool, unfeeling metal, lips that move under his and respond. The kiss is short, chaste –- neither of them can manage much more than that, not here -– but when Hermann pulls away, Newton’s eyes are closed and tear tracks have scarred his face.

“Fuck, I-” Newton laughs, wiping the tears. “This really isn’t sexy.”

“And my attire is incredibly sexy,” Hermann says dryly, gesturing to his jumpsuit. “Newton, I don’t expect anything. In fact, we’ve already reached the limits of what I would like right now.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just…you know when, when there’s white noise on in the background, like a computer or rain or something, and then all of a sudden the sound stops? And even though it’s finally quiet everything just feels _louder_ and…” Newton takes a deep breath and winces as he realizes his hand is trembling in Hermann’s.

“Sensory overload,” Hermann guesses. The other man nods.

Hermann strokes a thumb over Newton’s palm. “You were deprived of most of your senses for quite a while,” he says. “To have them back all at once must be…disconcerting. It’s okay to take time to adjust rather than leaping into this feet first as you are wont to do.”

A sigh. “I remembered it being a lot easier than this.”

“Being human?”

“Yeah.”

“It has never been easy,” Hermann says, squeezing his hand.

“As someone who has qualitative experience as both a human and non-human entity, I can definitively say: fuck yeah to that.” Newton’s eyes slip shut. “I get why you like working with the Jaegers now though: you want to be like them. You’re jealous of them. Jealous of robots.”

Newton is more correct than Hermann can comfortably say. For as long as he has dreamed of AI, he has also dreamed of technological augmentation, of feeling less and becoming _more_ \-- but Hermann has always felt and hurt too much, and he doesn’t have the fury to be bothered by it like he used to be. Especially after Aperture. “Perhaps I might have been, once,” he says. He kisses Newton again, careful to broadcast his intentions and keep it to a light press of his lips on the forehead. “Come. Let’s find some food.”

 

The look on Newton’s face when he tastes the stale Pop Tart they find in a vending machine is nothing short of rapturous. Hermann has seen people walk down the halls of The National Gallery and has witnessed mathematicians discovering the atomic nature of the breach with less wonder in their eyes than is in Newton’s as he eats.

“Fuck,” Newton whispers. Then he inhales too quickly, coughing on the crumbly junk food, and the moment is broken. Hermann sighs and pats him on the back. He pretends to be irritated, but doesn’t take his eyes off of Newton as the other man slowly eats the rest of the snack.

“Not a cheeseburger,” Hermann says.

“Doesn’t even matter,” Newton says, his eyes closed in bliss. “Though believe me, I’m still eating about three of those once we get out. With onions and ketchup and pickles. _Pickles_ , Hermann. I forgot pickles even _existed_.”

Hermann does not have any strong feelings about pickles, so he only nods. “You said we’re almost at an exit, yes?”

“Yeah. We’ve gotten most of the way there through these back tunnels, but we’re going to have to face GLaDOS pretty soon. I don’t think she can stop us from leaving though. She controls the chambers, but she can’t make us stay.” A fierce light shines in Newton’s eyes that Hermann has sorely missed.

“I hope for both of our sakes that you are correct,” Hermann says. They finish eating quietly, their moods much sobered by the thought of the tyrannical AI.

Fortunately, their silence doesn’t last long, even as they progress into the open hallways of Aperture’s corridors. Newton talks and talks, gesturing with his hands more than he ever did before, as if taking pleasure in the simple fact that he can do so. He occasionally stumbles over sentences as he re-learns how to use a mouth rather than an algorithm to speak. Once Newton opens his mouth and no sound comes out for over ten seconds before he finally sneezes. Newton looks so incredibly perplexed and disturbed by this that Hermann cannot help but double over laughing.

“You try sneezing once every two years!” Newton yells, but giggles along with Hermann. “You’re such an asshole, Hermann. Sure, laugh at the former robot, you _humanist_.”

Hermann indeed spends far too much time laughing and grumbling –- when he isn't hovering and worrying -– as Newton adjusts to his new form. In his defense, it is an astonishingly strange thing to witness. The nature of the adjustment is something that either merits laughing or crying, and Hermann wants the former far too dearly to give into the latter.

Hermann thinks that Newton feels the same way. When Newton first stood up, he’d fallen over almost immediately, having forgotten how to move when it didn’t involve a crane. Hermann had rushed to Newton’s side only to join the other man in a fit of giggles over the incident.

Even now Newton walks strangely; it is too purposeful and too fast to be natural, his turns too sharp. Newton has re-learned his body quickly, but there are certain tics -– such as his large blinks or his frustrated whine that more resembles humming circuitry than human sounds –- that he cannot quite shake.

“Earth to Hermann. You there, man? Too distracted by thoughts of my sweet, robotic body? I’m sorry to say it, dude, but you’re stuck with this now. No more kinky robot sex fantasies for you.”

When Hermann doesn’t answer with anything more than a roll of his eyes, Newton sticks out his tongue. “I’m actually more human than you right now, you know that?” Newton says. “Depending on your sci-fi philosophy, you are actually a cyborg right now.” He gestures to the contraptions still strapped to Hermann’s legs.

Hermann looks down at them and stops in his tracks. His thighs are strong from the jumping and walking he’s been doing, his toes are blistering, and his legs are as pale as ever from the lack of sunlight. And those _machines_ are still strapped to his shins and Hermann cannot remember how it feels to have each foot completely touching the ground.

Newton seems to realize his misstep. “Fuck, I’m an asshole. I’m sorry, man.” He examines Hermann’s legs, running a finger along one of the contraptions before giving Hermann some space. “Does it hurt?”

Hermann shakes his head. “It doesn’t,” he whispers. After all this time worrying about Newton and helping Newton adjust to his new body, he suddenly remembers that _he_ has a body too, a body that has also been affected by its time here. Hermann’s hands shake now. They tremble when he moves them, except for when he is aiming the portal gun.

“Will it…” Newton bites his lip. “I know you had some chronic pain before, but I’m guessing there’s some sort of mechanism in the springs that’s helping it. Maybe medicine or something –- I don’t know what Aperture Medical ever got up to. Anyway, do you…” Newton takes a breath. “Do you know what’s going to happen when you take those things off?”

Agony, most likely, but Hermann can barely stand to think that, let alone say it aloud. “I will probably need a cane,” he says instead, and leaves it at that.

 

Shortly after Newton woke up in his human body, he picked up the personality core that used to be his vessel. He looked at it for a long time before Hermann broke the silence.

“Do you wish to keep it?” Of course, Hermann was being ridiculous. He knew that he was -– they couldn’t carry that thing, not when they needed to be more alert than ever now that Newton was in a fragile, mortal body -– but he couldn’t stand the way that Newton was just _staring_ at the thing. The core no longer looked like Newton now that its light was out –- it had merely become another object.

Newton seemed to realize this and he shook his head. “Nah. Not that this isn’t a great selfie opportunity, but a) neither of us have phones and b)…”

“B” didn’t seem to be coming so Hermann said, “It would be rather odd, to have your former body sitting at the kitchen table with us.”

“I was thinking the mantelpiece,” Newton said with a grin, and Hermann rolled his eyes.

Newton placed the core on the stasis bed. “Is this the equivalent of throwing out the first couch you have sex on? Throwing out your first body that Hermann Gottlieb kisses?”

“Congratulations, Newton: you have made the idea of keeping your former body even _stranger_ by turning it into a sex trophy of some sort.”

Newton kissed Hermann on the forehead. “I want to leave it down here,” he said, and Hermann nodded. He wanted to keep it down here too. They would have to bring so much of what happened down here back up with them that it was relief to have the option of leaving at least a part of it behind.

 

“She hasn’t spoken to us yet.”

Newton knows without being told who Hermann is talking about. “She hasn’t,” he replies.

“ _Why_? Ordinarily she can go hardly a day without tormenting us. Now we’re back in the open, with you in your own body and she has not said a word? It is improbable to say the least, and more likely it portends something bad.”

Newton hesitates. Hermann zeroes in on it immediately. “You know something,” he accuses.

“I have a theory,” Newton corrects. “It’s just…I might have…accidently…drifted with her? Just a little bit?”

“Newton.” Even Hermann is surprised at the edge in his own voice and Newton quickly begins talking to head off anything else that Hermann could say to him.

“I know I said that the Aperture tech is more about transference than drifting, but you and I had to model our version a bit after the Pons, right? Otherwise the transference could have taken awhile, like it probably did when I first got hooked up. And I was basically drifting with the interface and GLaDOS is a _part_ of that interface so…”

“Newton,” Hermann whispers. Beyond mentioning his exhaustion, Newton had not said anything about the transference process, and Hermann certainly hadn’t pushed him to speak about it. “What did you see?”

Newton shakes his head. “Not much, you know? Hardly anything, I was too busy focusing on getting back to my body –- it’s way harder than you would think. Not that you’ve thought about it, I guess. Anyway, I think she got way more from me, which is why she isn’t attacking us with neurotoxin like she clearly wants to. She didn’t know about the severity of the Kaiju situation before, but now she _does_ –- maybe that’s why she’s letting us go!”

“Or perhaps she is just biding her time,” Hermann mutters.

“Maybe,” Newton concedes. After a moment, he says softly, “I think she’s trapped too.”

Hermann scowls. “What do you mean? _She_ is the one trapping _us_.”

“I don’t know,” Newton says, his voice laced with uncharacteristic hesitance. “I mean, I never knew much about the GLaDOS project; the different departments here were kept pretty separate and I only heard rumors about what was going on there. So I don’t know for sure, and this was pretty much the only thing I got from her, and it wasn’t really anything more than an impression…but I think she’s trapped too. Or she was? Tenses are confusing in the drift.”

Hermann is not sure whether to believe this, and even if he does believe it, he is not sure whether it changes anything. Whether it changes what GLaDOS has done to Newton and done to him. “Are you insane?” he says. “I told you that the drift would be dangerous and then you don’t even tell me about this? Stupid, idiotic man. What if she had _done_ something to you?”

“She didn’t!”

“As if that is a comfort to me,” Hermann snorts. “Trapped or not, she is a _monster_.”

The weight of the portal gun is heavy in his hand. _Scientists look so peculiar when they discover something new,_ he remembers. “Is there a way to free her?” Hermann sighs.

Newton shakes his head. “Wrong genre, Hermann. We’re not knights in shining armor and she’s not a damsel –- this is just a plain old sci-fi dystopia, dude.”

 _I used to like sci-fi_ , Hermann thinks. Lately, however, the genre has become far too relevant to every day life to hold the same escape for him.

Before he can say anything more, Newton speaks again: “I think we’re here.”

The words are enough to freeze Hermann in his place. He looks around, frowning as he sees nothing but the same white panels and the same vast tunnels. “I don’t understand.”

“Look up,” Newton whispers, already doing so.

Hermann turns his gaze skyward and gasps. The ceiling is higher than it’s ever been, stretching out perhaps a mile above them, but even as shrouded in darkness as it is, a small sliver of light shines from the top _\-- natural light_ , sunlight. It burns Hermann’s eyes and rips him to shreds, but he cannot help but cry at the sight of it. When he looks over, Newton is crying too.

“One more test,” Newton says, his voice hoarse.

Hermann nods. “We’ll do it together.”

It’s easy, in the end. Right by the light -– which they think must be coming from a door or a window of some sort –- is a platform, and only a short walk away from where they are standing is a seemingly endless fall, separated from them only by a metal railing. One portal at their feet, one at the bottom of the chamber: fall into the latter, momentum propels them out of the former, and they fling themselves onto the platform at the apex of their fall.

It’s simple. Or it should be.

Hermann finds himself staring down into the darkness, scowling as he tries desperately to shoot a portal at the ground, to no avail. “It’s too far,” he says. “I can’t even see what I’m shooting at –- for all I know, there isn’t even a proper surface down there on which to portal!” The fact that the portal gun only works on certain types of surfaces has never stopped disappointing Hermann, despite its other fantastic qualities.

Newton frowns and leans over the railing. Hermann immediately pulls him back. “Perhaps the people who do _not_ have mechanized springs attached to their legs should stay away from the drop.”

“Well how else do you want to go about this?” Newton says, throwing his hands in the air. He looks far too delighted in having hands to gesture with for Hermann to begrudge him for it. Hermann closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before looking over the railing again.

“I’ll go down there.”

Newton’s eyes widen. “Hermann, that drop is at least _twice_ the length of the one you were freaking out about earlier!”

“I was not freaking out!” Hermann protests.

“Fine, the one that had you curled up in a ball on the floor!” Newton yells. “We don’t even know if the heel springs can keep you _safe_ from this high up, we don’t-”

“Newt,” Hermann interrupts him. Slowly, so that the other man may pull away if he wish, he holds Newton’s face in his hands. “They will,” he says firmly. “And believe it or not, you are not helping me overcome my fear at the moment. I _am_ afraid, Newton, don’t mistake this act for courage. But I have been afraid for quite some time now-” _since Aperture or the Kaiju or perhaps before, I have_ always _been afraid, Newton, and I used to hate you because you seemed like you never had been_ “-and I dare say I won’t let it stop me now.”

After a pause in which Newton seems to be battling some seriously watery eyes, he sighs. “You’re such a Gryffindor it’s gross, dude.”

Hermann rolls his eyes. “A Gryffindor,” he mutters, cradling Newton to his chest for a long minute before stepping to the railing. He looks down at the drop and his stomach churns. Hermann closes his eyes and whispers, “Fortune favors the brave.”

He hears Newton snort behind him. “ _What?_ I’ve never heard that expression ever. ‘Fortune favors the brave,’ I can’t believe you just said that.”

“I want it to be true,” Hermann says. And he opens his eyes and jumps.  
  


This fall is far longer than any of his previous ones, long enough for fear to tear at his insides and for the wind to rip tears out of his eyes. When he lands, he lands hard, even with the springs, and he cries out as his legs crumple beneath him. For the first time since he’s been in Aperture, he can feel the dull burn of his old pain, though it is masked by whatever mechanism the springs use to keep it at bay.

Newton’s voice trails down to him. “Hermann! Are you okay?”

“Bruised, but fine,” he groans. He manages to get on his feet, his legs trembling with the effort. “I'm trying to find a surface, just give me a moment.” Looking around, Hermann sees mostly craggy, uneven ground. This place has not seen the attention of its masters for far too long -– or perhaps this part of the lab has simply never been completed.

A voice startles him out of his search: “You think you can just leave?”

Hermann whips around, holding his gun up even though he knows that the voice –- GLaDOS -– is coming from everywhere, that she cannot be targeted. “We are leaving,” he says firmly.

“To save the world,” she says dryly. “How noble. Do you really think that _you_ can save it? Newton’s file talks about narcissism, but yours doesn’t mention it. I’ll be sure to make the addition.”

“It’s not narcissism,” Hermann says. “I know I cannot defeat the Kaiju. But the PPDC can, and I can help. With this,” he says, gesturing to the portal gun, sure that she can see him even if he cannot see her.

“So loyal,” GLaDOS says. “Even to _him_. I’ve seen inside his brain you know.” She dangles this piece of information in front of him, expecting Hermann to take the bait. She expects Hermann to ask what she’s seen. He refuses to acquiesce.

“And he’s seen inside yours,” he says instead, his voice shaking. “He says you’re trapped here just like we are.”

After a long while, GLaDOS says, “Wrong. But what else can we expect from him? He has a history of romanticizing monsters.”

“Are you even _capable_ of knowing that you’re a monster?”

“Humans are far more monstrous than I am. Just look at what you've built to fight this war.” She sighs and the sound is artificial and full of static. “He’s not like you, you know. He actually _does_ think he can save the world. Such a fool.”

“You think it too,” Hermann realizes. “Newton was right, you think we can both help save it. Otherwise you would have killed us long before now. You know scientists, you _must_ have known scientists from your time down here. You don’t trust anyone, but you almost trust scientists.”

“Wrong again,” she says, but it’s softer this time.

There is another long pause, and Newton yells from above: “Have you found it yet? Hermann, hurry up!”

Hermann can practically feel GLaDOS’ gaze upon him. His hands tremble, but he stands up as straight as he can manage with the contraptions around his legs. Hermann is afraid, of course he is afraid, but he knows that GLaDOS cannot hurt him anymore.

“He’s a biologist,” GLaDOS finally whispers. And Hermann knows that when she says this, she means that Newton is not like them. Newton is life and beating hearts and shouts, and he and GLaDOS are calculations and fragile masks of logic and perhaps a shared, trapped feeling. Newton has always been freer than Hermann –- and perhaps GLaDOS too –- has ever felt.

But Hermann is a beating heart too, and when Newton shouts, Hermann shouts with him. And so he simply says, “I know.”

GLaDOS seems to accept this, because her next answer is weary, if no less biting. “What are you going to do with me then? Kill me?”

“We are going to escape,” Hermann says, “and then we will tell everyone of what you did.”

“They won’t care. They only care about the Kaiju.”

This is true. Hermann cannot imagine the PPDC or anyone else diverting any of their increasingly scarce resources in order to take care of an AI who is already isolated safely underground. She is a footnote on a list of far more dangerous and immediate species. “Then you have time,” Hermann says.

“You think that’s doing me a mercy,” she says quietly. “It’s not. You’re cruel.”

“I don’t know if I am,” Hermann says. “But I do know you are. Whether I am fascinated by you or not, you are cruel.”

Another, less articulate screech from Newton interrupts them and GLaDOS says, “Just leave, Hermann Gottlieb.”

Hermann looks at the darkness surrounding him. He does not know whether GLaDOS is trapped or not. He is not sure if GLaDOS even knows. But Hermann is sure that no one, least of all such a perceptive and intelligent –- if cruel –- AI, deserves to be down here. _Perhaps I will model the voice of the Jaeger AI update after her_ , he thinks. _So that the best of her can escape this place._

When Newton calls out again, his voice desperate and shaking, Hermann answers, “I’m coming!” He quickly finds a surface he can shoot and creates a portal. Traveling through it, he runs straight into Newton’s arms and is immediately pulled into his tight embrace.

“Don’t scare me like that,” a shaky whisper echoes in his ear. “Don’t not answer me like that ever again, you asshole.”

Hermann clutches at Newton and buries his face in his hair. “She was down there. GLaDOS.”

“ _What_? Did she do anything? What did she say?”

One day Hermann may be able to articulate the entirety of GLaDOS’ words, but for now, he shakes his head and says, “You were right. She’s letting us go.”

Newton nods, squeezing Hermann one more time before releasing him. “Then let’s go.”

Hermann, as the only wearer of the heel springs, has to hold both Newton and the portal gun in his arms in order for them to jump.

“Can’t you at least carry me on your back?” Newton grumbles from Hermann’s arms, but he still clings to Hermann when they advance towards the ledge.

“Not with the springs. Sorry, Newton, your masculinity will simply have to bear through,” Hermann says with a roll of his eyes. He holds Newton tighter when he looks over the railing -– the dim, orange portal is all that’s visible in the darkness. “Shall we?” he says, swallowing heavily. He tries to soothe his shaking hands, but he’s sure that Newton can feel every movement.

Newton presses himself into Hermann’s chest and nods. “Jump.”

This jump is similar to the one Hermann performed just minutes before, endless and dark and chilling. Except this time the press of Newton’s fingers on his arms and the soft scent of his hair keep Hermann present and unafraid.

Hermann never takes his eye off of the portal, doesn’t blink as he falls through it and is then thrown out of the sister portal. Momentum propels them high into the air -- neither man dares look down as they cling to each other. At the height of their jump, Hermann manages to just land on the platform, though his balance is momentarily thrown off as he tries to steady himself while holding Newton in his arms.

“I’ve got you,” Newton whispers, holding onto him, allowing Hermann to let go of the other man and instead desperately grasp for the railing. He steadies himself and there is a moment of racing hearts and gasping breaths.

Then Hermann unceremoniously drops Newton onto the platform. Shaking, Hermann falls to his knees, his skin clammy and hot. Breathing air does not seem to fill his lungs; they’ve somehow become useless bags of flesh taking up space inside him inside of the life-giving organs they’re supposed to be. Every breath is a wheeze and his vision swims as he struggles to inhale. Hermann blinks to alleviate the stinging of his watering eyes and gasps once more for breath.

“Hermann, breathe, breathe with me, man,” Newton says, rubbing little circles onto Hermann’s back.

Hermann nods and tries to match his breathing to Newton’s. His fluttering heart won’t stop trying to escape from his chest, but with Newton’s help, he is able to finally draw a breath that fills his lungs.

It takes a long time of Newton sitting with Hermann and touching him gently until Hermann feels he can stand up. He takes Newton’s proffered hand and nods gratefully after the other man helps him up. Hermann is about to say more -– perhaps a thank you or a declaration of some higher emotions was in order -– but when he looks up to do so, he stills.

He is facing the door. It is a door that is only open a crack, but that crack is enough to spill _light_ into that horrid chamber. He looks at Newton and the other man nods at him. Hermann turns back to the door and throws it open, gasping as reams of sunlight pour into the room. The glow burns and ravages Hermann’s eyes, but he cannot bring himself to care. He shields his eyes with one hand and squints into the light, willing his eyes to adjust. Despite the pain, he is unable to look away -– he is mesmerized, frozen where he stands.

“I’m scared,” Newton says, his voice shaking and filled with tears. His hand finds his way into Hermann’s and Hermann is grateful for the contact.

“I am too,” he says, but he knows that he cannot be as scared as Newton is, Newton who has been down here for almost two years and is presumed dead outside of this room. “I’ll be right here,” he promises.

“I know, you dumb, sentimental AI groupie.”

Even Newton seems to realize that his humor falls flat, given his crooked grin, but Hermann appreciates the levity nonetheless. He squeezes Newton’s hand and, taking a deep breath, pulls them both gently through the doorway.  
  


They are in a field. Of all the places into which Aperture Laboratories could exit, they escape through a shack in the middle of a god forsaken wheat field. Hermann isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh of cry. He suspects that both might occur and he is okay with this.

Hermann looks around them, studying the layout of the farmland, noting a road he sees in the distance. The sunlight still hurts his eyes, but he looks anyway. He wants to see. He has not been above ground in a long time and he wants to see.

“The sky is blue,” Newton whispers.

When Hermann turns to look at him, tears are flowing freely down Newton’s face. “The sky is goddamn blue,” Newton laughs. When Hermann follows Newton’s gaze, he finds the deep, penetrating blue of the country sky. It’s the kind of sky so big and vast that it doesn’t just fill the sky -– it fills up the air too, it fills up the spaces between waving stalks of wheat, and it fills up every crevice inside of Hermann while it burrows its way into his lungs. Hermann allows himself to cry, allows his tears to match Newton’s.

“The sky is goddamn blue,” he echoes. Turning away from the sky, he pulls Newton into his arms. They cling to each other. They bury themselves in one another’s touch, their bodies trembling as sunlight finally soaks their skin again. Hermann cannot imagine what this is like for Newton, who has only just adjusted to his body’s senses. The wind plays at their hair and the heat of the sun warms their faces and Hermann can smell dung and wheat. He never thought he’d be so happy to smell dung and wheat of all things, but he inhales deeply to fill himself with any scent that isn’t the stale dryness of recycled air. Hermann sways in place, dizzy with oxygen and sunlight.

“We made it,” he mumbles into Newton’s hair. He cannot stop crying. “We did it.”

“We did,” Newton says, his words coming out in a breathy laugh. “Underground lab facilities ain’t got nothing on me. On us,” he corrects himself.

Hermann rolls his eyes and pulls away from Newton. Newton protests only for a moment before Hermann leans back in to kiss him. It should probably be awkward -– their eyes remain open, as they cannot bring themselves to close them to the sunlight yet –- but when their noses bump and their tears mingle, Hermann only feels the swift tug of relief and a rush of adoration.

They will walk away from here soon. They’ll head to the road and then make their way slowly back to the Pacific. They’ll explain everything that happened to them and the springs will be pried off of Hermann’s legs. They will eat burgers and go to a bakery and start saving the world again, and they’ll negotiate how to ease Newton back into normal sleeping patterns after being awake for so long and how to soothe Hermann’s shaking hands. But for now, Hermann is content to hold Newton as they both marvel at the breeze brushing the tips of the wheat and the tips of their hair, and at the press of each others’ bodies against one another.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus eltsia doodle of Hermann and Newtcore's kiss (and if you click on eltsia's name in the notes at the beginning, you can find the post with all the art shown in the fic!): http://eltsia.tumblr.com/post/87314261559/extra-doodle-for-the-minibang-which-can-be-read


End file.
